This Is Jeopardy
by Natalia173
Summary: Mary and Marshall watch an episode of Jeopardy together.


I've included the idea of Mary and Marshall watching Jeopardy together in a number of my stories. My roommate has been asking for a fic specifically focusing on that so I finally broke down and wrote her one. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Not Jeopardy and certainly not In Plain Sight.

**ooOOoo**

She always went over to his house, mainly because Jinx and Brandi could never shut up long enough for Mary to hear anyway. Besides, it was more fun with Marshall. He knew a lot of the answers, being the endless vat of information that he was.

When she got there, the door wasn't even locked. She didn't expect it to be so she just walked in. It was almost seven-thirty after all. Who else would be coming around? Marshall was in the kitchen, their meal for the evening just about done. It was the only meal that she didn't eat take-out for.

"What's for dinner?" she asked him, trying to peak over his shoulder.

"Taste this," Marshall said, holding up a spoon. It looked a little less than edible to Mary but she tasted it anyway. She had come to learn that if Marshall was cooking it, it was probably going to be delicious. He didn't disappoint. Whatever the sauce was, it lit up all of her taste buds.

"God, it's like an orgasm in a pot," she commented.

"Oh, is the orgasm I put into it too strong then?"

Mary choked a little. "That was unnecessary. Not to mention a little gross. I don't want to be thinking about you orgasming… well at all. How much longer?"

"Maybe five minutes?"

Mary looked at her watch. It was only seven-twenty. As usual, he had timed it perfectly. They would have just enough time to plate the food beforehand.

"So are you going to tell me what you're making or am I going to have to guess?"

"It's just a different marinade that I'm trying for the chicken. Why don't you do something useful and get plates and utensils."

She grabbed all they needed, putting the utensils on his coffee table but left the plates next to the stove. "Beers?" she asked.

"In the fridge," he said, sliding two chickens onto the plate. The smell was intoxicating.

Grabbing to drinks out of his fridge, she sat on the couch. Marshall came over seconds later, two plates of chicken and rice in his hands. He put one in front of Mary. He looked around, trying to locate something. "Remote?" he asked.

Mary held up her left hand, holding the object in question.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Marshall asked, sitting down. "Turn it on. It's almost seven-thirty." He took the remote from her hand and flicked on the television.

"This… is… JEOPARDY!" the TV announced to them.

"I'm going to demolish you this time," Mary told him. Truth was that she hadn't won once. They always competed, keeping score for all the questions that they answered correctly, subtracting for the ones that they got wrong. If they both knew, it was whoever answered first. Mary always tried to cheat and Marshall always caught her.

"Wait, what's the bet this time?" It was their prize since they didn't actually get any money for their efforts. Usually, they just picked something that the other person would hate doing. Last time, Mary had to be nice to Eleanor to a whole day. Usually, Marshall made her do the dishes. Mary would think of something more and more ridiculous every time because she knew that she was never going to win. One time she had bet him that he couldn't shower for a week and another time that he had to have sex with a transvestite. Luckily, she had lost both times.

"If I win," Marshall said, pausing to think, "if I win you have to buy me lunch tomorrow. And I get to choose the place."

"You're going to choose Greek food, aren't you?"

"Of course."

"Gross. Fine, if you're going to make me do something gross you… you…" she didn't know what would Marshall's equivalent of Greek food was so she said the first think she could think of. "You have to kiss me. And none of that pansy on the cheek or peck on the lips chivalry crap either." The look of shock on Marshall's face was worth it even if she knew she wasn't going to win.

"I have to _what_?"

"You heard me, now shut up; Alex is announcing the categories."

There were some good ones that Mary thought she could answer, assuming Marshall didn't get there first. 'Crossword Clues E' was promising, mainly because she knew that's what the answer would start with.

_Crossword Clues for 200, Alex._

_ This children's character has not only lived on this street for the past 41 year but has had the same roommate_

"Ernie!" Mary called out. "Yes! 200!"

"Lucky guess."

_The study of words._

"Etymology," Marshall answered, no hesitation. He was up by two hundred. However, by the end of the category, they were tied, Mary having somehow pulled the word Episcopalian out of thin air.

_Oscar winning movies of 2009, for 600._

_ She was nominated for, and won, the Oscar for Best Actress. It was the first Oscar of her career._

"Sandra Bullock," Mary answered. Marshall looked over, eyebrow raised in question. "What? _The Blind Side_ was a great sports movie."

"You just didn't strike me as the sports movie type."

_800, same category._

_ It won best animated feature._

_ "Up,"_ Mary answered.

"_Avatar_," Marshall countered.

_What is, _Up_, Alex._

_Correct._

"Damn it," Marshall cursed. Mary just put a smug smile on her face.

_It won the most Oscars that year._

"_The Hurt Locker_," Marshall said, before Mary could open her mouth. "1000 points to me."

The commercial came and Marshall cleaned up the remnants of their dinner, slipping the dishes into the washer before the show came back on. Mary was tallying up her points. She marked them on paper as they went and then added them at the commercials. Marshall kept track of them in his head.

"I have sixty-four hundred points!" Mary announced.

"Sixty-five hundred," Marshall answered automatically, then realized that for once she hadn't been trying to up her point count. She had shorted it by accident.

Mary quickly recounted. "Sixty-five hundred," she announced happily. It was her best score to date, mainly because there were some good subjects to choose from. Marshall also seemed to be off his game tonight.

"What about you?"

"Seventy-four."

"Don't forget about that 800 you lost for saying _Avatar_," Mary said.

"That doesn't count."

"You said it; it was wrong, ergo, you lose points."

"But you said _Up _first. So technically, I would only lose points if you got it wrong."

"Don't try and cheat. You're at sixty-six. You're only beating me by 100 points."

"It's only the first commercial break. We're not even out of the Jeopardy round yet." He sat down on the couch, the show returning. They continued to talk, ignoring Alex's inquisition into the players' lives.

"Whatever. I have a good feeling. You're going down like a fat kid on a trampoline," Mary told him.

Unfortunately, the last three categories weren't to her benefit. Marshall smoked her on the science questions. The only one she managed to get was "density" on the 400 dollar question. Mary surprised him in the World Leaders category, knowing that the current president of Sudan was Omar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir and that England's Prime Minister was Gordon Brown, not Tony Blair like Marshall had guessed, forgetting the relatively recent election.

By the end of the Jeopardy round, Mary was losing by 1000 points. However, the Double Jeopardy categories were not promising for Marshall. When they started with Gunplay and ended with TV Tropes, he knew that he might have a real challenge winning.

_This gun company is known on the US side for its 416 automatic weapon but is actually a German company._

"Heckler & Koch," Mary answered. "800 points to me."

_This company was founded in 1963 and is Austrian._

"Glock!" they both called out.

"We each get 1000 points?" Marshall proposed.

"Deal."

They shook on it, eyes never leaving the screen. The Daily Double came up in the Cars category and the contestant bet five thousand dollars in the hopes of catching up to the lead. Whoever guessed it right would get 5000 points.

_This Ford model was original meant to be a new model of the Mustang, but Ford changed it when consumers were angered by the style_.

"THE PROBE!" Mary screamed. "Five thousand points!"

"Not fair! You can't answer questions about the car you own. Of course you know the answer; you're the only one who would still _own _one of those."

"Whatever, I got it right. I'm beating you by four thousand points. Suck it up, Princess."

Kiss me Kate_ and _10 Things I Hate About You _were two remakes of this famous Shakespeare play._

"_The Taming of the Shrew_," Marshall answered, sticking his tongue out at Mary. "That five thousand points isn't going to matter."

Back and forth they answered. Marshall decimated her in the Congress category but Mary swept TV Tropes. When it was time for final Jeopardy, Marshall was only beating Mary by one thousand points.

Unfortunately, the category was literary characters.

"Wipe that smile off of your face," Mary muttered, "You haven't won yet."

"You should just give up," Marshall said. "Do you even remember the last time that you picked up a book?"

She hit him with a pillow. "We'll see. Don't count your chickens and all that other stuff."

"I'm not counting any chickens before they hatch. Which, subsequently, was first said by Aesop in 570 BC."

"Show off."

"I'm just reminding you of what you're up against… and that tomorrow you will be enjoying a meal at a most delicious Greek restaurant."

"There is no friggin' way I am eating Greek. If I have to have that crap again, I'm going to hurl."

Marshall didn't answer, just handed her a pen and paper so that she could write down her bet. She tried looking at Marshall's paper, but he kept it hidden from her. Finally, the show came back on.

_In Pride and Prejudice, the five Bennet daughters, in age order, oldest first._

Mary's eye's widened. She knew the answer. She actually knew the answer! It was about the only thing that she remembered from her college English class. She quickly wrote it down. She thought that Marshall seemed to struggle but eventually wrote something down, frown on his face. Mary didn't fall for it. If Mary knew the answer, Marshall certainly knew it. The music stopped and they revealed the answers of the contestants.

_Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty and Lydia._

"So, how much did you bet?" Mary asked.

"What does it matter?"

"It matters," Mary said, "Because I got the right answer!"

Marshall was stunned. "You got the right answer? _You_ got the right answer?"

"Yeah, I did. Why, didn't you?"

"I may have gotten something similar…"

"Marshall, let me see your paper."

"What? No, why?"

"Marshall, give it to me!" She leaned over when he held it out of her reach. She climbed on him, trying to reach past his long arms and grab the paper. She straddled him, her hand grabbing the paper out of his hand. She opened it, seeing Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Lydia and Kitty. Marshall had gotten it wrong. At the bottom of the page, he had scribbled a number. He had also bet all of his points.

"I won? I won! I totally beat your ass!"

"Give that back," Marshall said, but the damage had been done. He flipped her on her back, pinning her to the couch and taking back the paper, shoving it in his pocket. "Fine, you won, ok? Are you really going to make me kiss you?"

"Pucker up, Mister. I kicked your information spewing little ass." She wrapped her hands around the back of his neck and pulled him to her, planting a kiss on his lips. Only Marshall didn't stop there. He kept kissing her, his hand on the back of her neck, in her hair. His kiss was soft but urgent, like he had been waiting a long time to do this, to have the chance to kiss her. He finally pulled away but didn't move, just slid into the small space between her and the couch.

"That… was unexpected," she said.

"I'm sorry. I just…" He couldn't even come up with an excuse.

"I have a confession to make."

"What?"

"I knew that kissing me wouldn't be a punishment."

Marshall smiled, looking at his partner. "I have a confession too."

"What?" she asked.

"I lost on purpose."


End file.
